Vivendi Posts Positive First Half 2005 Results

Media giant Vivendi, whose massive diversity of holdings include publisher and Blizzard Entertainment owner Vivendi Universal Games, has released results for the first half of fiscal year 2005, a period ending June 30th, 2005, and particularly singled out a resurgent, World Of WarCraft-buoyed game division for praise. According to the company, revenue increased 9% from the 2004 first half's total of 8.4 billion Euros ($10.1 billion USD) to 9.13 billion Euros ($11.07 billion USD). Returns for the second quarter were 4.62 billion Euros ($5.6 billion USD) vs. 4.27 billion Euros ($5.17 billion USD) in Q2 2004 for an increase of 8%. Vivendi Universal Games' contribution to the company's overall bottom line was improved much more significantly over the same period in 2004, by about 61%. The continued strong performance of World of Warcraft had a lot to do with the game group's revenue; the popular MMORPG launched in Europe, Korea, and China during the half-year period, and has achieved over 3.5 million subscribers worldwide, as of the most recent figures. Other games performing well at Vivendi Universal Games, according to the company, were Robots, the kid-friendly game licensed from the CG movie of the same name, PC strategy title Empire Earth 2, and Irrational's PC tactical shooter SWAT 4. First-half revenues for the game group were 238 million Euros ($288.7 million USD). Vivendi stock was buoyed minorly by the news, rising by 15 cents to $32.13 per share. But though the quarter and half were successful for both Vivendi and its game subsidiary, the company has not yet changed its financial outlook for the remainder of the year.